Healthy Kidney 10k

I feel lucky to have been able to race two weekends in a row. That’s a bit counter-intuitive as I kinda hate racing. I hate when the race is over and I’m eating a nice bagel (do I sound like a 70 year old man? “a nice bagel” as opposed to a mean bagel. Or a passive agressive bagel.) But all the anxiety leading up to the race can be an issue for me. And those around me. Usually people prefer not to be around me when I’m race stressed. Luckily my kids can’t move away. Until they are a little older.

After a pretty good (for me) 5k, I was able to run the Healthy Kidney 10k, a race I ran last year. This year, however, the course was completely different. OK, it was the other way in the park. Basically the same route. But for a runner, that’s completely different. What were they thinking? We hate change!

6:44. Write it. Run it.

I had one objective, and that was to beat my time two weeks ago, which was an average pace of 6:44. So I wrote that time on my hand. Because I can’t remember anything.

Met a couple of friends and I got to drive, which is always an honor. Seriously. The forecast was calling for rain (but what’s 90% mean? That’s a 10% chance that it’s not going to rain!) and we spent a lot of time in the car watching the clouds gather.

We’ve been parking using coupons from bestparking — it’s been pretty good. I don’t get a cent from them, but they are a great resource for suburban runners parking in the city. The problem is that we are all cheap bastards, and many many of us are in relationships with spouses who feel that maybe our running habit is more expensive than they would support if given the choice to say, for example, marry someone else. For example. So bestparking allows you to type in a cross street and it’ll draw you a map of cheap parking. Or usually cheaper. If you find something on the street, you’re not committed to the lot, but if not, it’s a fix cost including tax.

We pulled into the lot just as the rain really started to come down. I asked the parking attendent gentlemen if we could have a minute to dress ourselves in our running regalia. His lack of response I took for an enthusiastic endorsement of us rummaging through our bags figuring out which tee shirt would be best soaked with water. In fact, in the 30 seconds it took us to get dressed he went from mildly disinterested to anxious for us to leave.

I warmed up for about 30 seconds. I was worried about missing my spot in the corral. The first mile had cat hill in it and I was thrilled to get it out of the way early. Even with the hill, I was right on pace at 6:32.

Mile two, which is the flattest on this course, at 6:30. Mile three had Harlem hill in it, which blew. I ran a 6:52. At this point, I felt my race was blown. A 6:52. Mile 4 6:59. Good lord. Better quit running. Then I found two runners to follow and realized I should stop complaining and just finish the freaking race. Mile 5 6:38. Mile 6 6:36. 41:38. Very happy.

Tonight I’m in Anaheim and have got to get some sleep as I’m going to try to run a 5k in the morning. 3 races in three weeks. That’s some blogging.

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